Division II Class A Girls
The Race Highlights
The Individual Race
I started contributing for the website in 2018 so some
runners before that were beyond my purview. Case and point, even though he
competed in Texas after his freshman season, I knew of Abby Faith's older
brother Carter because he came to race at Music City Distance Carnival but I did
not know of the entire history of the rest of her siblings. When she won last
year's title, Abby Faith became the fourth Cheeseman to win a state title.
Allison Cheeseman was the first in 2013 while Claire and Carter swept the Division
II Class AA titles in 2015 all running for Brentwood Academy. The only other
family that comes to mind that carries this much pedigree has the last name
Winders. Feel free to point other's out that I'm overlooking.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch up with Abby Faith after her second state title run but something I would've asked her was "what was your goal time?" When she passed on the downhill after the first mile approaching the quiet corner (Skip to the 4:43 mark in the video above) you can hear her coach say very clearly, "You're approaching the 2k, come on, we need 6:40."
Take a moment to extrapolate that out...
She was on pace for 16:40 and why not? Just a little over a week earlier on a cold, wet, waterlogged course, she had just run 17:13! It seemed like the perfect conditions to go break 17:00. While that race plan didn't pan out over the final 3k, her 17:26 was still the fastest of the championship over all other female competitors by 39 seconds. For someone in her position with her a race schedule extending into late November and possibly December, I imagine she didn't taper as much as others for state so I'll be interested to see what kind of jump she makes at Eastbay or RunningLane when she finally races again.